# Next Generation Glycan Microarray using DNA-coded glycans and Next Generation Sequencing (NGS)

> **NIH NIH R01** · EMORY UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $335,400

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
 The development and application of glycan microarray technology and the availability of a large glycan
microarray to investigators by the NIH-funded Consortium for Functional Glycomics (CFG) in the last decade
revolutionized functional studies in glycomics. Hundreds of investigator-driven projects were carried out during
this time in collaboration with the CFG, and there is continued interest in glycan microarray based experiments
for studies in Functional Glycomics. However, these studies continue to be associated primarily with laboratories
specialized in manufacturing and processing the glycan microarrays due to the high cost of instrumentation and
special expertise required, including our Emory Comprehensive Glycomics Core. One of the major goals of the
NIH Common Fund investment in Glycoscience is to develop tools that will make glycomic studies more available
to non-specialized laboratories. In order to address this issue, we used a Common Fund supported project to
demonstrate the feasibility for developing the Next Generation Glycan Microarray (NGGM) that eliminates the
high cost of arrayers and scanners by introducing DNA sequences as codes for glycans and Next Generation
Sequencing (NGS) for decoding to amplify and analyze protein-glycan interactions. A microarray is essentially
the presentation of a library of coded-molecules where the code for each individual structure is its physical
location on the glass slide. By switching the physical location code to a DNA sequence, we eliminate the
complexity of manufacturing and reading a physical microarray. For each glycan structure, we install a unique
oligonucleotide sequence (code). The coded glycans are mixed together in a single vial and incubated with a
potential glycan binding protein (GBP). The GBP-Glycan-DNA complexes are then separated from the mixture
using a common immunoprecipitation procedure, and the oligonucleotide codes are amplified and quantitatively
sequenced by NGS. Each unique code corresponds to a unique glycan structure, and the copy number of the
sequence represents the amount of glycan bound, which will be directly proportional to relative affinity of the
GBP to different glycans. Eliminating the cost of instrumentation and developing a technology that is familiar to
most laboratories will make glycan microarray studies available to the biomedical R&D community by simply
providing the appropriate library of DNA-coded glycans. The optimization of the NGGM and the development of
a large library of DNA-coded glycans will address the limitations of the current glycan microarray format including
limited numbers of available glycans, instrumentation costs and the labor intensive process that prevents
screening large numbers of sample required for clinical investigations. We will also study the quantitative feature
of this new platform. Furthermore, we will also develop glycan microarray analysis of intact cells including
bacteria and yeast cells, w...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10121653
- **Project number:** 1R01GM137011-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** EMORY UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Xuezheng Song
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $335,400
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-09-15 → 2024-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10121653

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10121653, Next Generation Glycan Microarray using DNA-coded glycans and Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) (1R01GM137011-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10121653. Licensed CC0.

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